Disorderly Content

I actually had to use my BlackBerry as a phone when I was in Calgary a few weeks ago. Problem was, the company pays that bill but not my iPhone, and I didn't want to get hit with big roaming charges. (For some reason, AT&T treats Canada like it's a whole 'nother country. Imagine that.)

Okay, as much as I love my iPhone, how bad could using the BlackBerry be, especially for just a few days? Pretty bad, as I discovered that the thing had no ringtone, nor could I figure out how to set one up. So I had to keep it in its case, so it would at least vibrate when a call came in. Or watch it carefully while I was charging, since it can't go in the case when the cable's connected.

Anyway, later I discovered I'd lost speakerphone capability. That's when I realized that it wasn't bad design; it was screwed up. So I tried the usual things, like powering it off. When that didn't work I pulled the battery. And when that didn't work either, I went to the Intertubes for a little guidance.

Ignoring the posts about giving the phone a hard reset, which would wipe out some things I might actually care about, I found the magic combination for a soft reset: Alt + Right Shift + Delete. And suddenly I could hear all the ringtones I'd found in the phone. And my speakerphone stopped not speaking to me. And, since I'd found the place to set the ringtone, and that was actually working, I went to the site Crackberry.com, where I was able to email the Robot Chicken closing theme to my phone, and where it is now my ringtone. So if anybody ever calls it, I'm gonna know about it. And that's a good thing, right?

I was reminded recently of a favorite aphorism: never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity. A month ago on a vacation trip to Lost Wages, I suddenly found myself unable to retrieve work email. When I got home I asked our IT people about it, and was told that they didn't support iPhones and I'd just have to deal with it. Never mind the fact that it had been working find for two years...

Anyway, a few weeks later I got a notice that we were all getting new Blackberries and that we could give up our personal phones to join the corporate plan. Which would be better than having to carry around and worry about charging two devices, if I weren't such an iPhone fan. (And I'm not the only one at work, for what it's worth.) But it turns out that the disabling of mail access to us iPhoners wasn't intentional; it was an unfortunate result of a new antispam appliance. Still, the result was the same.

I'd had a Blackberry before, and kind of liked it. But now that I've bitten the Apple, well, I'm not thrilled with the latest RIM model. The Curve is a nice device, with a nice screen. But those tiny-ass buttons? Not designed for my chubby fingers or my aging eyes. Punching a phone number on the Curve's micro-keys is torture compared to the big digits the iPhone throws up on its big display. And the UI? Definitely not at Apple's level. Cumbersome doesn't begin to describe it.

So now I get to carry an iPhone and a Curve. And I'll whine about it to anyone who'll listen, at least until somebody does push mail for the iPhone and I can give back the Berry. Hey, how's that for a slogan? Give Back The Berry. You can tell I used to be in Marketing, can't you?

I love my iPhone, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. Some of the flaws are limitations in AT&T's network (EDGE is butt slow); some are inevitable with a first generation product (I actually had the phone freeze on me -- once); some are edge conditions (but not EDGE conditions), like not being able to specify a different port number for my outgoing mail server; and some are in the area of support for *ugh* de facto standards like Microsoft Exchange. (Being able to update my work calendar via the network would be really nice.) But the most annoying flaws are the ones that could be fixed easily, like not being able to put in my own ringtones. How ironic, from the guys who are turning the music business on its ear.

Which is why I'm so happy that hackers have already taken on the iPhone. By the time I discovered it, iFuntastic was already at version 2; it's now at 2.1. And it's just the kind of user friendly application you'd expect for an Apple product, even if Apple themselves may not be very happy about it. Basically, iFuntastic breaks into the iPhone's file system and lets you change things around. Current features include adding ringtones (both MP3 and unprotected M4A files), rearranging application icons on the home screen and replacing the carrier name with something more personal. So now I have all kinds of cool ringtones. And I can't wait to see what they do next. Exchange calendar and contact support would get my vote...

I've been playing with my iPhone, which really is the most delight-producing product I've experienced since maybe the Nintendo 64. Okay, there were extenuating circumstances with the 64, like demoing Super Mario on a big projection screen in front of a couple of hundred people. But this is still like that.

One not so happy experience, as I related earlier, was trying to type. I made lots of mistakes, which is kind of an issue. Granted, I wasn't any better with the tiny keys on my Nokia; heck, I may even have been worse. But it didn't help my confidence any as I tried to decide whether to take the plunge. In the end of course, I made the leap.

Anyway, last night I was practicing my typing, using the Gettysburg Address as my content. And I learned an important lesson in getting the iPhone to do my bidding: fast and wrong is better than slow and accurate. You see, the phone is so good and taking that jumble of mistyped letters and figuring out the word I meant to type, I can type quickly and sloppily and still get the right result. It's really remarkable how much faster I'm going after only a little practice.

I learned a long time ago that how a product demos is often a poor indicator of how well it behaves in real life. (In one particular case, demos was all a particular product was good for. And convincing the CTO that his baby was ugly and talked funny did not go well.) Here we have the opposite, where the product works better than you expect. Which is yet another delightful moment brought to you by the guy in the black turtleneck. (Steve Jobs, not me. Can't wear turtlenecks.)

Not that I didn't try. I mean, I did last an entire week before my resolve collapsed. Okay, it's true that resolve doesn't matter in the absense of any opportunity. But it's the thought that counts, or so I've always been told.

In case I'm not being clear, and when has that ever happened?, I refer to that obscure object of desire, the iPhone. As I wrote a few days ago, I waited until day two of its availability to try one out, and I was impressed, although not yet ready to take the plunge. That lasted maybe another day, at which point said obscure object was also unavailable. And so it remained until today, when for the first time since its release, Apple Stores in this part of California actually claimed to have stock.

As if daring them to disappoint me, I didn't arrive at my local store until they'd been open a full ninety minutes. And business was brisk, although I was face to face with an available salescritter within seconds of entering the premises. Who confirmed that they did indeed have 8 GB iPhones. And moments later I had one in my own hot little hands. I had other shopping to do, so it was a good three hours before I could get home, activate my phone (like most pleasurable experiences in my life, all too brief) and call a friend to gloat over my purchase.

Which really is everything they've said it was, at least in my case. Still have to figure out how I'm going to sync the calendar with Microsoft Exchange at work, although I think I have an answer. But everything else is just fine. And my nine month old Nokia smartphone? It'll be lining a drawer as soon as I get the last notes off it.

What a sad,cynical world we live in, when what a major corporation tells us turns out to be absolutely true. But such is the case here, where my pre-holiday planning got me a 100% accurate answer from my wireless provider.

I have a smartphone, one of those devices that does email (mostly) and web surfing (badly) and is also a phone (some of the time). I got it with an unlimited data plan, which is nice; I don't like surprises when the bill arrives. Anyway, as I was getting ready to go to Australia and New Zealand on holiday, I wanted to know what it was going to cost to have the phone retrieving email, roaming charges being what they are. So I got on the phone to Cingular/AT&T, forced my way through menu hell to get to a person, and then waited a while while he tracked down the information. The answer: $.009 per kilobyte. Which I verified: nine tenths of a cent. (I remembered stories on Consumerist about somebody being quoted a rate that turned out to be off by two orders of magnitude. No, he assured me, it really was a fraction of a cent.

So I turned off most of my mailing lists and disabled automatic retrieval of my work mail (they could use my personal address if they absolutely, positively needed to reach me). And I calculated the cost, based on last months usage figures (gotta love having detailed bill information on the web) and decided it wouldn't be too big a hit on my budget. And off I went to enjoy an antipodean winter.

Today I got an email notice that my phone bill was ready. And, as they used to say at Holiday Inn (it was Holiday Inn, wasn't it?), the best surprise was no surprise. My bill was right about what I expected. To quote Hannibal Smith, I love it when a plan comes together.

Yesterday was iDay, the day when either Apple changed the world (again) or the analysts were right (and when's the last time that happened?).

I refer of course to June 29th, the day the iPhone went on sale. I debated heading over to my local mall last night to check out the crowds, and maybe even the phone, but common sense and a call from a friend kept me on the couch. But today was another story. And so it was, fortified with a nice lunch at the local Vietnamese soup place, I found myself at Valley Fair. Since I parked on the Macy's side, I stopped first at the Cingular-turned-AT&T Store, where I found two iPhones on display. Had to wait a few minutes for the guys in front of me to stop playing, but then it was my turn.

Wow.

Cool.

Yeah.

In case that isn't clear enough, I was deeply impressed. I had a hard time typing, until I realized that using my thumbs (the approved technique for keyboard-based smartphones) was a bad idea. Once I switched to my index finger, I started hitting the right key a lot more often. But that was my only complaint; the graphics were beautiful and fast, the applications easy to figure out. I tried making a call, and found the sound much better than on my Nokia E62 (aka The Phone That Doth Suck) and the phone a lot easier to position next to my ear. As a video player the iPhone is superb, and it makes a nice iPod.

I placed the Suckphone next to the iPhone, and was amazed at how much smaller and thinner the iPhone is. And then I had to ask the important question: I know I have to agree to a two year contract to get one, but how does that affect the year and change on my current one? The answer surprised me: I basically wipe the time remaining on my current phone and start two years from the day I activate the new one. Which, by the way, has a cheaper plan than I have now.

So why didn't I buy, you ask? Only because they were out of 8GB models, and I refuse to settle for less. So I'll have to order one and wait a little bit. Which seems fair, I guess. The only question now is how long I hold out. Any guesses?

Am I the only one who thinks this is the coolest thing in ages? It's a USB hub that looks (and sounds!) like the Tardis. What better complement to my limited edition Godzilla-clone Firewire hub?

Via Boing Boing, which got it from Gizmodo.

I've been agonizing over getting a new cell phone for a while now. It was definitely time, both because I was just past that two year point that would get me a break on the price and because my old phone was becoming steadily flakier. (Doesn't help that I've dropped it more than a few times, but let's move on.) And besides, now that I'm carrying a Blackberry for work I was hoping to find a device that's both a good phone and a good emailer, so I can stop carrying -- and having to worry about charging -- two devices. The Blackberry wasn't it, or at least not the model they gave me; no Bluetooth, painful to use as a phone, and I'd have to switch carriers and get it switched to my number.

Hence my dilemma: what's the right -- or at least the least wrong -- device out there. I'd been waiting for Palm to get its new Treo out, and in the meantime read up on Motorola's Q, the HTC Wizard (I think) and the latest Blackberries. Then I heard about Nokia's E62, a Symbian-based PDA phone that my carrier (Cingular) offers. So I went out and tried one, and was pleased with its web browsing, which was faster than my Blackberry and borderline acceptable. So, throwing caution to the wind, I signed up.

And began having problems almost immediately. Some of them were self-inflicted; I can break just about any computing device within minutes, and this one was no exception. I managed to misconfigure my email in several ways both small and large. And my web experiences weren't nearly as good as at the Cingular store; I managed to wedge things entirely on several occasions, including a couple of times when only pulling the battery would bring my phone back to life. After a week I was ready to beg Cingular to take it back.

But, as I often do, I gave it another chance. And after wedging things even further, I wiped the phone entirely and reconfigured it from scratch. With my newfound knowledge of what to do, and more importantly what to avoid, I had it all working: personal email, work email and calendar, SSH client (so I can fix things on my website in between network connections), lots of cool ringtones, and even phone functions. I even managed to merge my personal and work phone lists. And now, a day after the reset, I'm planning to keep it.

It isn't perfect; the software is sluggish at times, it's not quite as polished as the Blackberry, and the little joystick isn't as nice as the Blackberry's scroll wheel. But the screen is nice and detailed, the keyboard is usable, I've managed to make Bluetooth work with my Mac, my earpiece and my car (but not, strangely enough, my work laptop, may Dell and Microsoft rot in Hades), and the coverage in my apartment is better than I've had with any other phone I've tried. So all in all I'm feeling pleased. We'll see if I still feel this way the next time I write.

In another life, I would have made a heck of a product tester. If there's a way to screw up a product, or to misunderstand a set of instructions, no matter how clear, I can find it. And if I'm so smart, as my college boards and the membership committee at Mensa once claimed, what do average people do?

Remember a couple of days ago when I was talking about the experience of getting satellite radio installed in my new car? And then my rage at being unable to actually buy the service until I abandoned my Mac for a *gasp* Windows box running *ugh!* Internet Explorer? Well, I thought that was the end of my troubles. I signed in, gave them my radio's ID number and my credit card details and looked forward to trying out my new toy. But it was late Friday night when I did this, so I put it on hold until the morning.

Saturday I took a nice long drive, trying my radio every few minutes and wondering when I'd get more than the preview station. But no joy; after an hour's driving I was still stuck with preview after preview. And, having figured out that something was wrong, I wondered how I'd screwed up.

To make a longish story short, I hadn't given any thought to how a satellite radio figures out whether you're paying for the service or not. Eventually I figured out that they must broadcast a signal to each specific radio to activate it. And with so many radios out there, they can't possibly send out the signal forever. Clearly, waiting overnight to try out my new toy was a mistake; it had long since given up on me. So I went back to the XM website and found a link for refreshing the signal. (Finding the link was easy. The hard part was figuring out how to log in to get to the link.) And as soon as I clicked on the Refresh button I made a mad dash out to the car, cranked her up (okay, it doesn't really have a crank) and tried the radio again. Which began doing its thing just a few minutes later. And if I ever get through all the podcasts on my iPod I'll start exploring the wonderful world of radio.

I'll admit to being a total sucker when it comes to completeness. What I mean is, give me a product that hooks up to something, anything, and I feel something's wrong unless I can actually take advantage of that "something" integration. In this case it's my new Camry, and its support for satellite radio. Now, I don't really need satellite radio. Heck, now that I have an iPod full of podcasts I hardly ever listen to regular radio. And I barely use the car's CD changer, or at least I would if it hadn't eaten two of my CDs and if Toyota hadn't sent the wrong replacement unit and I'm still waiting for them to unfsck my fscked player. But I digress.

Anyway, I somehow talked myself into adding a satellite radio receiver to the car. Which meant ordering said receiver, not an inexpensive proposition. And once it came in (and once the replacement CD unit was also in, since I really didn't want to make an extra trip to the dealer, which I have to do anyway, because did I mention they sent the wrong model?), I had to pay for a few hours of installation, on top of the monthly fee to actually get access to content. Which happened today, the installation part I mean. So here I sit in front of my Mac, radio's ID code in hand, trying to activate the damn thing on XM's website.

Except, you see, they hate me. Well, to be more accurate, they hate Mac owners. It seems their activation page refuses to run on Safari. Or Firefox. Or even Netscape, although they claim otherwise. Which only leaves Internet Exploder, which has so deteriorated from Microsoft's neglect that it isn't included with new Macs. Not that anyone with half a brain would risk running it in the first place, security nightmare that it is. Which is another digression, I know. From my main point, which is that there is no Mac browser that XM considers worthy.

Fortunately (he said, his voice dripping with irony), I do have that Dell laptop my employers insist I use. Which I guess will have to do, as I entrust my credit card number to Microsoft's browser. I am such a brave fellow...

A few days ago I read a blog rant (I tried that as blogrant but it looked kind of wrong, like it was some kind of variation on vagrant, which isn't a vague kind of rant, although it could be) about the stupidity of cell phone manufacturers. The problem is with those bleeps a phone will make when the battery gets too low. And the problem with that? That the phone will make them whenever the condition is discovered. Including in the middle of the night, when you're happier to sleep and possibly miss a call than be awakened to deal with a cranky baby bit of technology. The author of said rant pointed out quite reasonably that the phone knows what time it is, so why not hold off on the bleeping until a more civilized hour?

Seemed a good idea when I read it, although it took on rather more urgency this morning. It seems I neglected to recharge my phone since leaving New York for Fort Lauderdale on Saturday. And this morning around 5, the phone decided to complain about it. Loudly. And then again a few minutes later. And I, in a what was I thinking? moment, had left the case with my charger and other cables in the rental car. Which meant getting up, getting dressed and getting said case, in case my parents called. And again I ask, who owns whom here?

Not to sound smug or anything, but I'm enjoying my Camry Hybrid enormously. I especially like the Crusing Range display, which starts around 540 miles with a full tank and slowly creeps down as I drive. My first two fuelings came long before the tank was empty; in both cases I knew I had long trips ahead where it might not be convenient to stop, so I filled up long before the needle reached E. But on Tuesday I let it go to see what would happen. The yellow warning light came on after around 525 miles. And like most cars, the needle moved through the last quarter of a tank a lot faster than the first quarter. But when the Cruising Range dropped to zero, I started to get worried. And I happened to be on a stretch of El Camino Real that was remarkably free of gas stations, or at least stations without even more obscene prices than I was used to. So I kept going, wondering if I'd have a really embarrassing story to tell about having to call the Auto Club on Independence Day because I'd overestimated my Hybrid.

Anyway, a couple of miles later I found a station, ignored the somewhat higher price and filled up. And was rather surprised when the tank took fewer than thirteen gallons. Because I'd been told, and I just verified, that the car holds just over seventeen gallons. Meaning that I'd been nervous over finding a station before the car ran out of gas, which, the way I've been driving, would have happened in about 160 miles. I've heard of being conservative, but that's just ridiculous!

I've now had my new Camry Hybrid for three whole days and something like 600 miles. And as much as I'm enjoying my purchase, and yes, I am getting the advertised 40 miles to the gallon, this vehicle is taking some getting used to. One challenge is to try to ignore the potential information overload. With all these interesting, visually stunning and animated displays to choose from, it's hard to not get caught up in the wonder of the hybrid system. One moment the gasoline engine is powering the wheels. The next it's a combination of gas and the electric motor. When you coast, the wheels act as a generator and feed power back to the battery. At intersections everything's quiet. And then the light changes and, depending on how hard you press the accelerator, either the electric motor or a combination of gas and electric gets you going.

And there are all the statistics: fuel economy this trip (if you do well, at the end of the trip you're rewarded by a message of Excellent! on your panel), fuel economy since you filled up, cruising range (which seems wildly conservative, given my fuel usage and the size of the tank), outside temperature (which changed from chilly to scorching within a few miles) and so on. Plus the navigation display, which deserves its own post. (Don't worry; I'll spare you that one.) I tell you, it's hard to keep your eyes on the road.

But perhaps the strangest experience I'm having is my inability to stop reaching in my pocket for the key every time I approach the car. The Camry has this RF-based keyless entry system; you just walk up, it notices you're there and unlocks the door as you're pulling the handle. Similarly, there's no ignition lock; you press a big Power button to get things going. And to shut down at the end of your trip; I can't stop reaching for the nonexistent key in the nonexistent lock.

Which I suppose isn't all that bad. I mean, it's not like feeling foolish a few more times a day's gonna kill me, right? And maybe in a few years I'll get out of the habits of a lifetime. Either that or install a placebo lock in the car. Now there's an idea...

What car? Why, this one.

I've been in the market for a new car for a while now. My current vehicle still runs, and it's still giving me good service. But after nine years and 135,000 miles, I'm more than ready for something new. I've been thinking hybrid, both because of ever increasing gas prices (increasing almost daily around here of late) and because every story of corruption and not-so-enlightened self-interest coming out of the Party In Power^TM makes me more determined to do something that's at least a tiny bit better for the planet and my fellow man.

The problem of course is that I relish another visit to the oral surgeon more than I do a trip to a car dealer. I've been on the receiving end of high pressure sales tactics in the past. And even though I never actually let myself be sold by one of these sharks in suits, the thought of the encounter was enough to make me want to forget the whole thing and maybe get a pair of roller skates instead.

But I finally took action yesterday afternoon. I was in a spending mood, having just finished buying a new Mac Mini and 20" LCD, courtesy of my blogger friend Elke's Apple employee discount. (I introduced her to the German pretzels at the Cupertino farmer's market. She saved me a few hundred on a badly needed computer upgrade. Seemed like an excellent trade to me.) So after a rather nice Thai lunch, Elke headed back to work and I headed off to do battle with the auto industry in the person of my local Toyota dealer.

Which didn't turn out the way I had expected at all. I walked into the showroom hoping to see a Prius or a Camry hybrid. But I was disappointed; no hybrids inside. So I wandered out to the lot, where I found one of each. Interestingly, I was approached only once by a sales rep who asked if he could help. When I replied with my usual "Not at the moment; just looking", he walked away. Hardly car salesmanlike at all, I thought.

After giving both cars a quick once over (both were marked as fleet cars, and neither had the big stickers with options and price), I went looking for somebody to talk to. The rep I found got me the next one in rotation, who turned out to be the same one I'd been approached by earlier. He gave me a test drive in the brand new Camry hybrid (so new it was his first experience driving it as well as mine), answered my questions, showed me some amazing bits of featuredom (like the audio connection for my iPod and where the heck they hid the CD slot) and generally let me enjoy tooling around in a set of wheels with just over fifty miles in it.

When we got back, I asked to try out the Prius, although I was pretty much convinced I knew what I wanted to do. Somebody beat us to it, so we talked over process and paperwork and color choices on the Camry while we waited for the Prius. (Nice car, the Prius, although not nearly as nice as the Camry in handling, comfort, quiet or amenities. And just about the same price, assuming you're like me and want all the goodies. But of course, as good as the gas mileage is on the Camry, the Prius is in another league entirely.)

So that was it. I left a deposit to get on the waiting list. And I have the next couple of months to wait and anticipate, assuming somebody doesn't change their mind and let me sneak in sooner. Expensive day, Friday. And I can't help feeling like my Acura is giving me dirty looks.

My friends really do know me. Dave and Carol had me over for Christmas dinner, where we had our usual low key gift exchange. I'd found them a very cool coffee table book full of old maps of various cities around the world, which got a favorable reaction. And they gave me an iDog, surely the best peripheral ever invented for an iTunes user like me.

The iDog is, as the name suggests, a sort of robot dog, a cross between an Aibo and a Tomogotchi. He sits next to your iPod and listens to your music. If you feed him music often enough, he's happy. Neglect him and he whines. And if he really likes what he's hearing, he turns his head, raises and lowers his ears and does a little light show on his face.

None of which can sound half as entertaining as the real thing. My little doggy seems entranced by ABBA and The Police; he likes strong rhythms and tries to keep time. Pretty successfully too. He's nice to have around. And he doesn't shed or leave little presents on the carpet. Just the sort of pet a lazy character like me needs. Did I say that my friends know me?

Yeah, like that's news. But this is special. Not in the Princess Leia bikini for your dog sense, but still special. Just in time for Christmas, Boing Boing delivers word of a seasonal Darth Vader, decked out in shiny red and accompanied by an equally shiny green wreath. Gee, remember when Darth Vader was a symbol of bad, rather than of bad acting? Okay, he was always a symbol of bad acting. But you know what I mean.

I've just violated one of usability expert Jakob Nielsen's Top Ten Design Mistakes for weblogs: I used (what I thought, or at least hoped was) a clever play on words for the title of this posting, rather than something descriptive that will tell the reader whether or not they care about the topic. Then again, this blog violates a bunch of his other rules. Hey, it's my blog; you're gettin' your money's worth, right?

But never mind that; the only real value in the previous paragraph was to pad this posting so it wouldn't look so awkward next to the tall, thin image at right. Which is a wonderful thing: a limited edition Homer-Simpson-as-Da-Vinci-model roller ball pen, also available as a fountain pen. Like Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing, I'm glad they exist. Unlike Cory, I think they might just be worth a few of my hardly earned dollars. Okay, more than a few. But still.

Definitely not safe for work, at least in any place I've ever worked, but a website called Captain Toy has a review, with pictures, of a Family Guy S&M toy set. Funny and disturbing at the same time, as all good toys should be.

A friend IM'ed me a page with the most amazing bicycle designs I've ever seen. The cycling wizards at Specialized are working on a set of bikes that are guaranteed to turn heads. I'd characterize them as 50s sci fi meets Schwinn. Can't wait to see some of these babies racing down the local bike lanes. Or is this the excuse I need to get back into cycling shape? My new toy resistance is only so strong, you know.

Update 08/10: Doncha hate it when reality intrudes on a really great story? My blogger friend Elke contacted someone she knows at Specialized, who told her that it's all the product of some design student's hyperactive imagination. Then again, they would say that, wouldn't they?

MacSlash has a posting this morning pointing to the Flickr gallery for someone with talent, perseverance and way too much time on his hands. It's an iPod with its case replaced by one made entirely of wood. Wonder how much mass that adds. And I wonder how well the wood scroll wheel works in practice, not that it would stop me from buying one if it were available. Gee, d'you think that natural case provides extra resonance for the sounds within? Is a Stradivarius model next?

From the So Wrong It's Right department comes this iPod cozy that's been knitted from chain mail. Just the thing for riding into battle on your trusty steed, white earbuds hidden inside your helmet. Or at least for the local Renaissance Faire, where those humorless SCAers can have a good snicker at your lack of authenticity. Of course, we'll be checking their costumes for bits of velcro...

Thanks as ever to Boing Boing for spotting this one.

I thought the severed Sauron finger the New Line folks were hawking was the weirdest movie tie-in I'd seen. Then I saw this Return of the Jedi era Princess Leia slave girl outfit on Boing Boing. For your pet! That's just wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to begin.

(There's also a Darth Vader model, which is more dumb than creepy. After all, any dog that will let you put a Darth Vader costume on him is clearly unworthy of it.)

While wandering around LinkShare, the folks who mangle manage the iTunes Store's affiliate program, I ran into a little bit of nostalgia. If you're old like me, you may remember collecting catalogues full of fascinating yet useless junk and then poring over every picture and bit of deathless prose within. So seeing the name of Edmund Scientific among all the other merchants dying to pay me for conning you into buying stuff you really don't need brought back some wonderful memories. Heck, click on their logo at right and do a search on "airship". I just dare you to resist getting one of these babies!

Sure is nice to know my taste is just as random as ever...

I've never coveted a kitchen appliance before, but I think that just changed. Their description is classic Engrish, but who couldn't love a high speed sushi maker with a touch panel and adjustable wasabi.

3000 pieces an hour? Makes me hungry just to think about it!

(Thanks as always to Boing Boing for the pointer.)

One of my Scaper buds just pointed me at this amazing site. smashTheTONES will generate ringtones for your cellphone from an MP3 or MIDI file you provide. And it'll generate wallpaper from your image files. It even lets you edit, selecting the starting point and length of the music, as well as the position and scale of the graphic. And it does it all for free! I just tried it with my Motorola phone; the results are as good as the phone can provide. And the price is hard to beat: just the cost to download the file.

The new pope notwithstanding, I'm almost ready to believe in miracles.

I'm an impulse shopper. I'll often consider a purchase decision from all sorts of angles, do research on different offerings. And then a moment arrives when I forget the research and act on the spur of the moment. Yesterday, it happened twice in rapid succession.

The trigger for this burst of consumerism is an upcoming trip to Australia to spend time with my Scaper buds and then do some touristy stuff. I've had the trip in the works for months, wondering if I was going to get grief from my employers about taking so much time off. Then the RIF Fairy took care of that concern. But I digress.

Anyway, I've been debating getting another digital camera. My Nikon D70 takes wonderful pictures, but is awfully big to carry every moment. I still have an Olympus 5050. But it's not exactly unobtrusive, even if it's a fraction the size and weight of the Nikon. So I'd been looking at smaller cameras, something a little smaller than the 5050 that I can have with me for the "just in case" moments.

As a separate issue, I've also been suffering with my new cell phone. When my AT&T-supported Panasonic died, I had to switch to Cingular. But the LG phone they gave me has been highly unreliable at home, losing signal at the most inopportune moments, like when I'm talking to a prospective employer. Besides, I was regretting not choosing a tri-band phone, so I could have service in Oz or anywhere else in the world I might end up.

Anyway, I'd just finished a rather promising interview Friday morning. It was too early for lunch, so I thought I'd kill some time at San Jose Camera. (Big mistake.) I described my plight, at which point the sales rep dropped a Pentax Optio S5i on the counter. The Optio is shockingly tiny; it was love at first sight. But I tried to be strong, so I asked about models that use the same Compact Flash memory as my Nikon. He gave me a similarly featured Canon ELPH, which under any other circumstance would qualify as lilliputian. But not compared to the Optio, which was smaller, thinner and significantly lighter. So much for my research; so much for my self-control.

Next stop was lunch, followed by a visit to the Cingular store. Where I scored myself a Motorola V551 quad-band cameraphone with way more features than any human being needs. And discovered that for just $4 a month I get the right to pay obscenely high rates to use my Cingular service from Australia. Fortunately, I plan to limit my international use to emergencies. Even better, I can cancel the international roaming in between trips. And better still is the fact that the new phone seems less prone to dropping calls.

So I have two new toys for my trip. And a heckuva credit card bill, not that that's anything new. But it sure will be nice if that promising interview turned into a promise of a job...

From The Impulsive Buy comes a review of the iPod Shuffle. At least I think it's a review of the Shuffle; the reviewer and his friend seem a little bit distracted...

I never got into the Star Wars collectable thing, even as big a fanboy as I was. I did own a radio control R2D2, which may still be in a box somewhere. No, not the original box; that would be far too forward-thinking for one such as I. But I may just have to rush out and get this latest Star Wars toy. It's Darth Vader! Or his subterranean tuber cousin, anyway. Who thinks of these things? What was the meeting like when somebody suggested Mr. Potato Head with a light sabre? And why can't my meetings be like that?

Thanks to Boing Boing for giving me my first good laugh of the day. I needed it.